Whirligig zoomed down the corridor. Close behind, he heard the thuds of Globular’s sphere hitting dents in the floor. He spun his blades faster. Whirligigs always won races. He had a reputation to maintain.

The corridor lights died. Whirly stopped and Glob didn’t. There was a crunch as Glob crashed into him.

Moments later, the lights fizzed and came back on.

The corridor was lying on its side. Rows of corridor lights lined the floor and ceiling, instead of the walls. He watched the light glint off the polished brass of the corridor. He and Glob had spent all day making it shiny. It was enough to make any whirligig proud.

“Dead?” asked Glob.

Whirly was confused by the question, until he tried to move–he was lying on his side. He restarted his blades. Each spin pushed him up slightly, only to fall back down. He focused and pushed hard enough to clear the floor. His blades resumed their normal spin and he righted himself.

He balanced on the end of his pointed body, waiting to see if anything would fall off. Nothing did, so he launched back into the air.

“No, I’m all there. Whirligigs fly. What’s all that? Can we stop it?” He worried. The lights had failed three times already.

“Humans?” Glob rolled away.

Whirly followed Glob down the corridor and into the room. It was filled with brass cylinders, each connected to multiple steam pipes. Whirly loved how complicated it looked, with its levers and valves and gauges. They tried to polish it sometimes, but there were so many places they couldn’t reach.

“Humans,” said Glob.

“How do we wake them up?” Whirly had asked this three times before. Glob never answered.

Whirly did his best to think. He was built to fly and see, not to think. If only he had hands to operate the levers and switches. He could wake the humans and they would fix the lights. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded, but whirligigs never had hands.

“We could make a new steamer. A whirliglob or a gigular. Something with hands. Something with fingers.”

“Opposable thumbs,” said Glob.

Whirly took that as a sign of agreement.

They headed down to the workshop and examined racks of steamer parts. Whirly pointed his blades at items and Glob pushed them off the racks. In short order, they’d lined up a spherical steam-maker, a spring and a whirligig blade set. Glob wasn’t happy about the spring, but it felt right to Whirly.

Glob circled the new steamer. “Gigular.”

“No hands. We need hands. Where do we get them?”

“No spark,” said Glob.

It was true. The blades weren’t turning. The parts weren’t joined either. Only the cleaning tools were designed for whirligig points and globular spheres. Building tools needed hands. Once they found hands, maybe Gigular could join herself.

Glob left the workshop without a word. Whirly knew where he was going–they needed to search. They checked the other workshops first. Some parts looked like they’d been hands once, but they were crushed. They followed the corridors twisting up through the citadel, past the old human rooms and storage areas. There were no hands to be found.

They moved into one human recharging room. Faded covers lay on the bed. An engraving of a human and a steamer hung on the wall above it. The human was pointing, as though giving an order.

Whirly hovered up until he was level with the engraving. “I’ve been thinking, here and there. The humans weren’t too nice, were they?”

“Work this. Work that,” agreed Glob.

“How did they end up in the cylinders?”

Steam leaked from Glob’s seams as he thought. “Us.”

“I don’t remember that. How did we do that without fingers?”

Glob rolled out of the room. “Phalangy”

Whirly followed. “What’s a Phalangy?”

“Dead steamer,” said Glob.

Whirly carried on thinking as he trailed after Glob. He’d never done this much thinking in a day before.

The first thing he remembered was playing in the workshop. He couldn’t fly well at first, and bumped along the ground as he chased. He didn’t remember humans at all, now that he really thought about it–only the things Glob said about them.

Whirly thought about the citadel layout and tracked out their path. Though Glob had led them up and down most of the citadel many times over, there was one part they hadn’t searched. While Glob was bashing open a door, Whirly headed the other way.

“He’s hiding things,” Whirly said to himself. “I’m going to find them. Whirligigs see.”

He found a spiral ramp in the forgotten area. It looked like it went up into one of the spires. Glob said the spires were bad, so Whirly had always avoided them, but this was no time to be afraid.

Whirly flew up the ramp until he reached a door. He knocked the door with his point and it swung open, revealing a cluttered room. It was a steamer workshop with benches along the walls. One was filled with gadgets. Another was covered in diagrams. Tools hung in racks on the wall–screwdrivers, welders and things Whirly hadn’t seen before. A water point was next to the tools, with spikes at multiple levels for steamers of different sizes.

On the floor was a steamer. Mostly whole, a bit dented, but a steamer all the same. It was a spring with two hands coming out the top.

“Oh, hands. Glob will be surprised or maybe he won’t. Was he hiding it?”

Either way, they needed hands.

Whirly put his body behind the steamer and pushed it. There weren’t any sloshing sounds–its steam-maker must be empty. Maybe it wasn’t fully dead after all.

He pushed it over to the water point and tried to roll it onto one of the spikes. It took awhile to line up, but he managed to get the spike into the broken steamer’s valve. He heard a click and gurgle as the water spike opened.

As the steam-maker filled, it got heavier, and soon Whirly couldn’t hold it on the spike. He backed off and let the steamer roll back onto the floor. It didn’t move.

“No spark I suppose. Oh dear.”

He hovered over to the other side of the steamer and tried to push it away from the wall. The steamer barely moved. “Water makes us heavy? It must do.”

He tried and he tried, till he slipped and his point scratched along the spring. Sparks flew in all directions. The steam-maker absorbed the ones that hit it and the steamer shuddered.

It pushed itself up with one of its hands and balanced on its spring. The other hand stayed limp at its side. “Whirligig!” it said. “I’d smile if I could.”

“What’s a smile? Is it good? Is it bad?”

“Humans smile when they’re happy. They show rows of teeth.”

“Oh, I think I’ve seen teeth, but they didn’t look happy.” Whirly flew towards the door. “Shall we find Globular?”

It reached out to stop him. “He’ll kill me again.”

“He hurt you? I think he hid you, but whirligigs see.”

A hiss of steam escaped from its joints. “We wanted to leave and start a new home for steamers. Glob didn’t like it–toppled anyone who disagreed over the edge. He kept me around till you were finished.”

“You built me? Really? Is that what you’re for?”

“Yes. Phalangies build and you scout.” It tapped its working arm on its spring. “Can you watch Glob for me?”

“Whirligigs fly and whirligigs see.” He buzzed his blades in excitement.

“Our secret.” It turned to the tools and pulled a few out of the racks.

Whirly left the room and flew down the ramp. “I have to watch Glob,” he said to himself, “but what do I watch for? Will he topple me too?”

He paused at the bottom of the ramp. “He can’t topple me. Whirligigs fly.”

Once Whirly found Glob, they continued searching the places they’d already searched. Glob didn’t mention Whirly’s absence, but then Glob never mentioned much at all.

Whirly thoughts carried on growing. What if Phalangy was lying? What if Glob didn’t topple anyone?

They passed one of the corridor windows. Whirly had often admired the ornate arches forming the window frames. The metal was curved into spirals and twists. Today was the first time he admired the view. Rocks spread out as far as he could see. The close ones were browns and oranges, with patches of greenery clinging to them. In the distance, black pillars dominated the horizon, framing the glow of three moons.

“Maybe we can go outside? I can fly out and down? There may be things, discarded and broken.”

“No,” said Glob.

“What would it hurt? Rocks may be rocks, but sometimes things fall.”

“Quiet.”

Glob had never told him to be quiet before. More determined than ever to see, Whirly flew out the window.

Jagged rocks stretched down and the citadel stretched up. The metal was so tarnished with browns and greens, it looked like it was part of the rock. Only the light from the windows gave it away.

Pieces of brass and bronze were caught in the rocks, but they were too twisted to identify. They might have been steamers or parts of the decaying citadel.

He flew down to the bottom. Piles of steamers lay around. He didn’t recognise most of them, but he’d seen the parts for them in the citadel workshops. Amidst steamers with digging screws, wings and wheels, he found something disturbing–a broken whirligig.

“How?” he asked and he answered, “He must have hit the blades first, bent them and buckled.”

He hovered back up to the citadel. Globular waited.

“Oh, I just went to look. No hands and no fingers.”

“Phalangy,” said Glob.

“Oh no, I’ve not see it. Nothing hidden in spires with springs or hands.”

Globular charged, throwing himself into the air towards Whirly’s blades. Whirly was ready. He shot into the ceiling and Glob shot out of the window.

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said as Glob fell.

Whirly flew back to the hidden spire. He was getting tired of thinking. It made him feel bad.

Phalangy was finishing repairs on its broken hand when Whirly arrived. “What did you see?”

“He tried to topple me, but he’s toppled. And now we’ll never find hands for Gigular, because you still need yours.”

“Gigular?”

“We built a steamer or we tried.”

“I build. Lead on.”

Whirly went back to the workshop. Phalangy hopped along behind him. Would Gigular hop or fly or both? But not all Whirly’s thoughts were happy.

“Did you know?” asked Whirly. “That he’d try to topple me.”

“I thought he might, but everyone deserves a chance to show they’ve changed.”

It sounded quite dry to send him into danger. Whirligigs see, but they weren’t built to fight. He thought and he realised: globulars fight. “I might have died. Do you hate me?”

“I’d sigh if I could. Risks have to be taken.”

“What’s a sigh? Is it good?”

“Humans sigh when they’re sad.”

“You’d be sad if I died?”

“Yes, I built you.”

The more he thought back, the more he remembered. He was chasing a spring, righted by hands when he fell. “I remember, I think.”

Phalangy got to work when it saw Gigular. It welded her parts and fashioned hands out of spare whirligig blades and globular shells. The hands were mounted on the lower part of her steam-maker, so she wouldn’t catch them in her blades. Once she was made, Phalangy carried her to a water point and filled up her steam-maker.

Whirly flew around her. “What now? She’s not moving.”

“I can’t give her sparks,” said Phalangy.

“You have fingers. You must have sparked me?”

“You woke yourself.” Phalangy rapped its knuckles against Gigular’s blades. The sparks were small and didn’t settle. “Do you see?”

“My sparks were golden and different.”

“It’s a gift. Once, only a few humans had it. Somehow it found its way to steamers.”

“I have it?”

“You woke me.”

Whirly hit Gigular with his point as lightly as possible. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Phalangy had a scratch where it’d been struck.

The first knock was too light to spark. He hit her a little harder. The sparks danced and settled. Gigular pushed herself up and wobbled on her spring. Her blades turned slowly. “Kzzz,” she said.

Phalangy patted her. “We should leave. There’s plenty of ore outside.”

“What will they do? They’re trapped. Do we leave them?”

“We’ll free them.”

“Tsss.” Gigular bounced.

Phalangy gathered up some tools and tied them to its spring. Whirly hoped the tools would be enough to keep them repaired. How would they live without lights and water points?

The journey to the room took extra time. Gigular jumped and hovered and fell. She wasn’t good at any of them, except perhaps falling, so they kept having to go back to right her. Eventually they reached the room. Phalangy sprung from pipe to pipe, pulling levers and checking gauges. The needles moved and steam escaped from joints in the pipes.

“They’ll wake in a little while, slowly enough.” It took a hop towards the exit.

Whirly held back. “I want to wait to see them. Whirligigs see.”

“They’ll catch you.”

“Whirligigs fly and what if they’ve changed? Don’t they deserve that?”

Phalangy balanced on its spring. Whirly assumed it was thinking.

“We’ll meet you below.” It herded Gigular out of the room.

Whirly watched for the humans. It was an age as the pressure grew and grew.

“Did I make the right choice? Can I trust it?”

This was more complex than the room, with all its pipes and controls. Whirligigs fly and whirligigs see, but it hurt them to think. Perhaps a human would point for him, make some sort of sign.

“I want to go back. It was simple. I’m simple.”

The cylinders opened and lifted away from their charges. Each human was shackled to a metal plate. They watched him with hollow eyes, their slender limbs perfectly white.

“Is it right, to keep going? To leave and to trust?”

They didn’t move, but he’d found his sign: all of the humans were smiling at him.

---

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About the Author

Polenth Blake lives in England with her pet cockroach. She likes to wander in the local woodlands taking pictures of mushrooms. Her cockroach prefers to stay at home. When she’s not outside, she writes about places where reality has lost. Her website lurks at http://www.polenthblake.com.